13) Preparation of thriller aspects for our production

Natasha

12) Thriller movies in preparation for our final production

From our preliminary not being a successful thriller clip, i've watched some more thriller movies, to see succesful ways different directors use different techniques in building shock and suspense and building up tension, to get some ideas for our own thriller opening.
Seven by David Fincher is a physcological thriller which is about two detectives investigating into a serial killer, from this basic overview we can see the classic thriller characters and plot - crime scene, detectives, protagonist and antagonists.
During the opening David Fincher has used a dark setting with low key lighting which creates a silhouette effect on the characters which instantly signifies mystery for the audience which is significant on the whole narrative because the detectives are trying to unvail the mystery of the serial killer. There are alot of jumpy parts from unexpected phonecalls and when the 'murdered' person grabs the detectives coat, and i found this is effective in keeping the audience engaged with the thriller which is important in a physcological thriller as they need to be aware of whats happening to understand the narrative and for the build up of tension and suspense to be effective.
There is quick cuts of different brutally beaten body parts of a dead body and slight panning however the audience dont get to see the full body which is effective in creating the build up of tension and adds on the build up of shock.
The dark lighting also is very effective with the use of the torches as it is very sinister and mysterious as we can only see what is lit up from the torch lights.
Increase in intense opera music witch cuts into  zooms of objects and cuts back to a zoom in to the face, and the use of the birds eye view shots of the room to set the scene.
There is also alot of non-deigetc tormenting voices in the background to add on the emphasis of the state of mind and also on the audiences anxiety.
The setting is also very dull with rain, which is pathetic fallacy setting the scene for something bad to happen and creating and intense atmoshphere.

Natasha

7) Inglorious Basterds

I watched the opening half an hour of Inglorious Basterds to see aspects that director Tarantino uses to create suspense and tension, and the similarities between his work and Hitchcocks.

Straight away we can see that Tarantino is using typical thriller characters such as the antagonist, protagonist, and the victim which are important in the conventions of a successful thriller as these characters together instantly portray elements of mystery and create a tense atmosphere as they differ from one another so much.

Tarantinos thriller conventions are similar to Hitchocks with the use of
Lighting and shadows, especially on the characters faces, however, although Tarantino has used this he doesnt have a dark shadowy setting as Inglorious Basterds is set in a sunny coutryside, which is effective with emphasisng the shadowed faces, suggesting the characters in the light are the protagonists /victim and the characters in the darker shadows are the antagonist/villain, and Tarantino has also used low key lighting to create half shadowed faces to make the audience unsure of the character. The use of the bright setting is also effective in showing the contrast of the different worlds and how trapped the characters are in their countryside house due to the Nazi's invading which is effective for this narrative in creating tension and suspense.

Sound and the gradual build up of the sountrack to signify danger.
Camera angles, as Tarantino has used classical thriller camera shots; establishing shot of landover the shoulder shots and point of view shots which all reaveal mystery to the audience and the over the shoulder shot also focus' on the characters reactions, which is useful for the audience in the build up of tension and anxiety, panning shots, low angle shots to show superiority in characters, and close-ups.

watching inglorious basterds was useful in preparation of gathering more ideas for our final production as it is very different from other thrillers where the weather is usually glum to set the scene (pathetic fallacy) as inglorious basterds used the opposite and had it bright which was effective in creating the contrast between what was happening inside and the freedom outside, and it shows good use of shadowing on the faces which will be effective to use in our thriller opening to distinctively show the antagonist and protagonist.

Natasha

11) Preliminary task and evaluation

                                                           storyboard of preliminary

(here we wanted to add the video of our originial clip, however after we created the separate subclips on final cut express we couldnt get the original back.)

evaluation of original

After filming our clip we found that there were many problems that we could improve on in creating a successful thriller.
The panning shot we used at the beginning wasn’t effective because it didn’t allow a build up of tension and suspense, because we instantly see the crime, and build up of tension and suspense is a key convention of Hitchcock’s thrillers. It also wasn’t completely effective in paying homage to Hitchcock because there is no element of mystery and gives the narrative away instantly.
The high angle shot looking down on the victim wasn’t effective because it revealed too much of the crime, for example; in Psycho, Hitchcock uses a variety of close ups and extreme close-ups when Marion is murdered in the shower..

..This helped build suspense to emphasize the shock on the audience, which is neccesary to create a successful thriller

. The mirror shot is effective in paying homage to Hitchcock, showing double identity, however it doesn’t work as effectively as we wanted because it turned out to be a mid shot, when we wanted a close up of Dannii’s face in the mirror however we couldn’t do this because we didn’t have the right equiptment to make it as accurate as we wanted.

We then did a zoom to Dannii's hands to show her washing off the blood progressing to another zoom of the plug hole. However, this part didn't go very well because we zoomed the camera too close to the plug, which made the picture blurry. Having the close up of the plug hole relates to Hitchcock's idea of when he did that in the shower scene in Psycho suggesting that the crime has been washed away which is the effect we wanted for our thirller to support the double identity theme.

In the last part, Shannan walks into the toilets completely unaware that there is a dead body slumped in one of the toilet cubicles, which ensures that it will create tension and suspense for the audience.

To create more of a tense atmosphere for this part, we decided that we would add some music, starting from the begining of the sequence gradually getting louder as the mystery is closer to being revealed which will emphasise the shock, from the tense atmosphere.

If we could film how we wanted to with the dialogue shannan would have had a conversation with Dannii, with the music will getting louder and louder, until Shannan leaves the toilets, and the door closes. At this point the music would reach its climax and suddenly stop which would leave the audience feeling tense.

At the same time this wouldve been happening, the camera would zoom to the door as it shuts, which would end the clip at the climax of the music with the closing of the door.

The use of the soundtrack would help create anxiety for the rest of the thriller movie also keeping the tense atmosphere and carry on the build up of tension and suspense after the mystery had been revealed.

To try and improve our clip we will use Final Cut Express to edit it adding transitions and a soundtrack to try and make it more effective in paying homage to Hitchcock.

evaluation of edit

                                                             Storyboard of the edit:

in the start of our edit we did a mid-shot of Dannielle looking in the mirror showing two sides to the character, however this was not as effective as we hoped because of the poor lighting as we wanted low key lighting to create shadows on the face, we couldn’t do this because we didn’t have the correct equiptment.  The effect we wanted was a dark shadow over one side of the face to show they are torn between two personalities.  This would of built the tension between the characters and the audience, creating suspense.

From this scene we went straight to a panning shot showing the victim led on the floor next to the toilet which was unsuccessful in building up tension as it gave away the crime too early and therefore there was no impact on the audience to feel shock or anxiety which would have been an effective aspect on the thriller.

The extreme close up of the blood washing down the plug hole from the hands was inspired from Hitchocks pyhsco...
we thought this would be effective as it was succesful in creating shock for the audience and for them to feel anxious and tense of the murder.

In Pyhsco the high angled shot zooming in to the plug progressively turning into Marions eye helped create the tension and suspense to the audience as it created a very anxious atmosphere of the mystery of who just murdered her.  To improve from our original video we added a transition so that the cuts would be more smooth such as Hitchcocks innovative dissolve into the eye. We then cut to the high angled shot of Megan dead near the toilet, however we feel this released the mystery of the crime too quickly and to improve this we should have shown different shots of the victims body such as a hand or a foot to create mystery and build up tension and suspense for her being found later on in the thriller.

The use of the diegetic sound of the water running in the sink was effective in creating a sinister atmosphere, and helped to set the scene for when Shannan comes into the toilet building on the tension and suspense of the audience of the body being discovered.

For our editing we added transitions after each cut for the thriller to flow more smoothly as our cuts weren’t quick to create suspense and so we tried adding different transitions on in order to create a fast pace for the audience to feel tense.  Using final cut express was also uselful in preparation for our final production of being able to succesfully edit.

We also couldn’t use dialogue in our preliminary because of the time restrictions and therefore there wasn’t really any added mystery to be revealed so there was no build up for the audience and no cliffhangers keeping the audience engaged, this therefore wasnt very succesful as thrillers require attentiveness to understand what is happening throughout.

To try and add more tension and suspense to our preliminary we added a soundtrack and changed the volumes round to get it high and low which is an effective convention of thrillers, however because of our filming it didn’t have any significant effect.

From filming and editing our preliminary we now have a better understanding of what is required in order to create a succesful thriller opening for our final production.

Natasha

9) Hitchcocks traits in our Prelminary planning

Why/how did we chose to use Alfred Hitchcock’s style of filming a thriller?

In the first shot there is a close up mirror shot of Dannii, with a foot in the background which shows double identity, which is a trait of Hitchcock’s thrillers, showing the audience that Dannii has two different sides to her. The foot in the background also creates mystery and suspense, to help build up to the shock when the audience become aware of the mystery.

To get from the first shot to the second, we used a panning shot, down to a close up of her blood covered hands, progressing into a zoom in to the plug to emphasise the double identity that she is able to wash away the evidence without anyone being aware and carry on with her ‘normal’ life that the characters think she lives. The audience will know about Dannii’s two sides, which is effective for Hitchcock’s movies and will show thriller traits keeping the audience a part of the narrative. We then cut to a panning shot of Shannan walking through the toilet door on her phone, completely unaware that someone is dead in the toilet she is about to go in, we then cut to Megan’s body on the floor which is the first time the audience see her whole body which builds up the shock and then adds to the suspense and tension as Dannii is still in the toilets, from the close up of the body we cut straight back to a close up of Shannan’s face to reflect her state of mind and to show her shock. This also builds tension for the audience as they are aware that Dannii is the killer and Shannan is in danger.

 We then use a panning shot of Shannan turning around to see Danni looking in the mirror washing blood of her hands which is letting her secret out and through an over the shoulder mirror shot, Danni and Shannan have a conversation;

-      Dannii: Now it’s your turn.

-      Shannan: What?! What do you mean?

-      Dannii: You know what I mean.

During the conversation there is a quiet sinister sound track, which the gets louder as the camera gets further away.

After this conversation, we use a progressive long shot of Shannan and Danni staring at each other. The camera continues to get further away, and eventually goes out of the toilets and watches the toilet door shut. At this point the music is at its loudest and stops when the door shuts fully so the audience are left unaware of what happens to Shannan which creates tension and suspense to find out the mystery.

Storyboard of our preliminary plan:

 

Natasha

8) Theories

example of the Blumer and Katz theory.

SEMIOTICS

Ferdinand De Saussure - the founder of semiotics ,focused on linguistics and understanding of the messages behind sounds and units of words and communication.
In Thrillers semiotics can be shown trough the speed of cuts and close ups of signs and signifiers triggering the audiences thoughts, alot of the time thrillers focus on signs of insignificance to trick the audience this is to keep the audience thinking, to emphasis on the shock.
Signs and Signifiers
A sign is something that signifies a greater concept and be signed in many different ways;
- word
- icon
- colour
- symbol
- picture
- sound

Signs signify things that have a cultural reference, as a lot of signs already have a wide meaning which will be recognised by the audience allowing them to have a good understanding, for example the colour red instantly signifies danger so by using aspects like this it is already helping create the atmosphere and therefore signs are very important in thrillers as there needs to be a very specific atmosphere throughout which is why most thrillers use dark lighting as this instantly signifies mystery.


Example:

The gun is a sign of danger - signifies death

Dark background in the trees is a sign of mystery

Natasha

6) Thriller Characters

PYHSCO

Janet Leigh, was well known for her role as Marion Crane(Mary Bates) in Psycho in the 60s. Her character dies in an iconic scene... She goes to her room and takes a shower, which feels to her like absolution for a crime she had commited. But it's too late for that. The motel owner enters the bathroom masquerading as his mother carrying a kitchen knife, which he uses to stab Mary to death. 

Janet Leigh appeared in  other thrillers like Touch of Evil and The Fog. She plays similar helpless characters in most of her films and is usually a victim. She was chosen for her role in Psycho for her good looks and acting skills. This meant that she was type casted from then on.

 JAWS

Spielberg wished to avoid hiring any big stars. He felt that "somewhat anonymous" performers would help the audience "believe this was happening to people like you and me",

Quint was a typical shark hunter and normal looking therefore the audience could relate to him which is what Spielberg wanted for his Jaws movie. Quint captained the boat and became part of local lore after his last trip out to sea in a bid to capture a giant killer shark. Hired to catch the shark, Quint was joined by characters Brody, and Hooper to try and capture and kill the shark. Quint was chosen for the leading role in Jaws as his appearance and accent was typical of a shark hunter which added to to mystery of the thriller and enabled the audeince to relate to it.

Typical thriller characters include:

Antagonist (villain/badguy)

Protagonist (hero/goodguy)

Anti-hero

Detectives/crime solvers

Red herring (disruption of the main focus)

Femme fatal (typical seductive women)

Damsel in distress (happy ending)

Sidekick/helper/accomplice

Victims

 

Natasha